2024-09-16 07:38:19
The miracle is known: even for equal work, women are paid less than men. We console ourselves by saying that the gender wage gap is narrowing, albeit slowly. But that’s still not true everywhere: in America, the pay gap between women and men has widened again for the first time in twenty years.
The results of new federal census they were taught this week. The United States government essentially compares the salaries of women and men working full time: in 2022 women earn 16% less than men, in 2023 they earn 17% less. In other words, the gaps are increasing, without even taking into account the fact that women work more time than men. First since 2003.
There are many explanations. First, during the pandemic we observe a decrease in the median income among all workers, and in 2023 when the American economy is doing better in general, worker income increases again. Except they increase by 3% for men and by half as much for women. There is also regional information: the year 2023 sees the largest number of women from the Latin American region and young women (ie at the beginning of their careers) entering the labor market. Two rare categories, for reasons of chance, to earn less than the average.
The labor market is as sexual as the society in which it operates
There are also more structural reasons: American society does not facilitate child care, fathers do not always play their role as they should, and mothers are often forced to find work to fit their family life. However, these jobs which allow greater flexibility of working hours pay less.
Finally, an even broader question arises which concerns the salaries of professions filled by women: nurses, nurse assistants, domestic help… Professions that do not pay better than those that are said to is a man The data available regardless of the type of operations to be performed: median income of janitors and maintenance workers (two male-dominated occupations) are $2,000 higher a year than house help and maids. There is no rational explanation, the labor market is as sexist, neither more nor less, as the society that works.
At the current rate, it will take more than a century for West Africa to reach parity.
For this time, according to available figures, the gap is not increased in other regions of the world, but there is nothing to rejoice. Europe – and especially northern Europe – is an unequal region but on the old continent women should still work a month and a half older than their male counterparts to earn as much as them, and in 10 years the gender pay gap has narrowed even further. L’Africa sub-Saharan, according to study by the World Economic Forum, is in sixth place. In South Asia and the Middle East. While several countries, starting with Namibia, Rwanda and South Africa, have made noticeable progress in terms of wage growth, Chad, Mali and DRC are lagging behind. Here too things are progressing… but not fast enough. At the current rate, it will take more than a century for West Africa to reach parity.
Even a little worried like Report from the World Bank published in March 2024, worldwide the gender gap is much wider than expected. Not only are women not well protected by the law, they only enjoy two percent of the rights that men enjoy, but what’s more, this protection is only theoretical and in practice the laws that protect women’s rights rarely used. Therefore, of the 98 countries that include equal pay between men and women in law, at least 35 have implemented aggressive pay measures and possible mechanisms to ensure this equality.
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